A package of three major new renewable energy bills has just passed both houses of the Rhode Island General Assembly unanimously.  Taken together, the bills will give Rhode Island one of the best and one of the most coherent sets of renewable energy laws in the country.  Over the past three months, CLF staff have worked extensively with the leadership of both the RI House and the RI Senate on drafting the actual language of these major bills.

One bill addresses what is called “net metering.”  Net metering occurs when an electric customer’s meter can run not only forward but also backward.  Net metering is important to individuals and companies that have small renewable projects (like solar panels on the roof of a home) because net metering often makes the difference between those projects being economically viable and being non-viable.  Until now, net metering law in Rhode Island was a shambles:  for example, some renewable energy technologies qualified for net metering but (for no apparent reason) other did not qualify; moreover, many portions of the law were so vague (or incoherent) that no one was sure what they meant, and there was even litigation challenging net metering by alleging that Rhode Island net metering law conflicts with federal law.  The newly passed statutes fix all those problems.  The new law makes clear that net metering is available to all renewable technologies, gives a generous price to renewable energy generators, and outlines exactly the boundaries between Rhode Island and federal law.

Another of these bills addresses “distributed generation.”  The DG Bill seeks to fix an unforeseen problem in an earlier renewable energy law, the Long-Term Contracting Statute (LTC Statute) that the General Assembly enacted in 2009.  Long-term contracts are especially important to renewable energy developers because such long-term contracts enable the developers to get financing for their projects.  The LTC Statute turned out to have one unexpected problem.  It worked very well for large companies, like Deepwater Wind, that wanted to develop and build utility-scale projects.  But the LTC Statute was not so good at helping smaller developers that were unable to afford an army of lawyers to negotiate individual contracts with the utility.  The  DG Bill solves this problem.  The DG bill carves out a portion of the long-term contracting obligation created in the 2009 LTC Statute and sets that portion aside just for small, local projects (like a town that wants to put up a single wind mill at its Town Hall).  In order to obviate the need for that (expensive) army of lawyers, the DG Bill creates a very simple, standard contract for developers of small, local renewable energy projects.  Basically, the law says:  If you have a small, local renewable energy project, you do not need to negotiate your own contract with Grid; instead you can automatically get a standard, short, easy-to-understand two-page contract.  The DG Bill also sets a standard price for such small renewable energy projects — the price is set by a board and is designed to be high enough so that such small projects are economically viable, but low enough so that the public is not forced to over-pay for renewable energy.  The big, utility-scale projects can still be built; but the DG bill will now make it easier for smaller projects also to be built.

The third bill in the set makes it easier for renewable energy developers to connect to the electricity grid by setting a timetable and prices for such interconnections.

CLF worked long and hard on this package of renewable energy legislation, and we are very gratified to see its success in the General Assembly.  We were also pleased to see the package of bills highlighted in the lead editorial of the Providence Journal on June 21.

Mount Hope Bay (photo credit: John McDaid)

After nearly a decade, Weaver’s Cove Energy (WCE) finally abandoned its liquefied natural gas (“LNG”) terminal project that initially had been proposed for Fall River, MA and, more recently, for the middle of Mt. Hope Bay just off the shores of Somerset, MA. This puts to an end a project that would have required massive LNG tankers to pass through dozens of miles of waters adjacent to some of New England’s most densely populated coastlines, and would have included a four-mile-long cryogenically cooled LNG pipeline through critical winter flounder spawning habitat in Mt. Hope Bay and up the mouth of a federally designated Wild & Scenic River.

Despite significant litigation, extensive public opposition, and questionable economics, WCE LNG persisted for years in its ultimately fruitless pursuit of state and federal approvals for the project. For a number of those years, CLF took a leadership role in pressing for comprehensive environmental review, calling for a regional analysis of LNG terminal siting in New England, and insisting that federal authorities take a hard look at clean energy alternatives.

CLF is proud to share this victory with the many stakeholders who worked tirelessly to protect Mount Hope Bay, Narragansett Bay, and the Taunton River –from dedicated local activist Joe Carvalho to the talented attorneys representing the City of Fall River and the Massachusetts Attorney General’s Office, and from tenacious members of Massachusetts’ Congressional delegation to former Fall River Mayor Ed Lambert who vowed “death by a thousand paper cuts” to WCE’s ill-conceived project.  Now, all of the people and natural resources that depend on these important waters no longer need to sing the “LNG Blues”!

Listen to “LNG Blues,” written and performed by local activists in Somerset, MA:

LNG Blues by conservationlawfoundation

Hands Across the Sands 2010, Salisbury Beach, MA. (Photo credit: William Scofield)

With the arrival of summer, many New Englanders’ thoughts turn to the ocean. Whether you enjoy surfing the waves at Hampton beach, sailing the Narragansett Bay, camping on Cape Cod’s National Seashore, picnicking with your family at Revere Beach or simply enjoying the ocean’s bounty in the form of a Maine lobster roll, our ocean gives us so much to be thankful for.

But the ocean means so much more to New Englanders then a day at the beach, it plays a critical role in growing our economy and supporting jobs and businesses.  In fact, healthy oceans bring tens of billions of dollars to our economy every year and support thousands of jobs and businesses in our region—fishermen, surf-shop owners, shipping companies and dock workers, bed and breakfast owners, restaurants and ice-cream shacks all depend on a healthy ocean.

Yet while we enjoy some sun at the beach after a long winter, New England’s ocean is at risk.

34 years ago oil companies drilled several test wells off New England’s coast and were preparing to launch full scale drilling operations when CLF, along with our allies in the fishing and tourism industry, stepped in to protect our coast. Despite the small amount of oil estimated to lie beneath our waters, the oil companies haven’t forgotten about that day, and now they, and their allies in Congress, are making a big push to re-open our coast to new drilling—and they’re closer than ever before.

Last month, less than a year after BP’s Deepwater Horizon oil disaster unleashed our nation’s worst environmental disaster, the US House of Representatives passed legislation that would expand drilling in New England and across the country. Thankfully that legislation was defeated in the Senate, but we know the oil companies and their allies will be back.

While most of New England’s congressional delegation—Republicans and Democrats alike—joined together to protect our coast, a few sided with the oil industry.  Congressmen Charlie Bass and Frank Guinta of New Hampshire and Senators Brown of Massachusetts and Ayotte of New Hampshire all voted with big oil to expand drilling off our coast, while limiting environmental review.

New England’s ocean is far too valuable to drill, and it is important that all of us from local business owners, to fishermen, to the casual beachgoer, send that message to our representatives in Congress.

That is why I hope you can join CLF and our allies in supporting a wonderful event called Hands Across the Sands.  On Saturday, June 25^th people from around the world will meet at their local beach to join hands and issue a simple call to governments around the world—Stop offshore drilling and promote the development of clean renewable energy.

So join us (and bring your kids, friends, neighbors, and anyone else you can think of ) at a Hands Across the Sands event near you. Then stick around afterwards and enjoy a day at the beach with the people you love. Click here to find an event near you.

There will be hundreds of events around the world, but if there is no event scheduled near you, it is very easy to organize your own event (and a great way to meet new people who share your love of the ocean). Click here to learn how, or call Winston Vaughan at (617) 850-1750 and he’ll walk you through it.

CLF is a proud founding member of Renewable Energy New England (RENEW) – a group that brings together renewable energy developers and technology companies with environmental advocates.

In a major milestone in the life of RENEW (a relatively new organization) ISO New England (ISO-NE), the operator of the region’s “bulk” power system and wholesale electricity markets, has elected to perform a regional economic study requested by RENEW.

The RENEW economic study will evaluate how much of the approximately 4,000 megawatts of wind energy projects that have applied to connect to the New England system (the technical phrase is, “in the interconnection queue”) could be developed over the next five years without significant transmission upgrades (that is, building new power lines or supporting hardware) and what the economic impact of making those upgrades would be in order to develop the remaining wind power projects.

ISO-NE performs annual economic studies drawing from requests submitted by stakeholders.  In recent years ISO-NE has undertaken studies at the request of the Governors of the New England states that looked at long-term scenarios for building wind energy resources and transmission for supporting such resources. In the past two years ISO-NE has studied high penetration renewable resource scenarios for the year 2030 in the course of doing a New England Wind Integration Study (NEWIS). RENEW hopes the 2011 study will inform development and transmission upgrade decisions over the next few years as the states work to meet their renewable portfolio standard requirements, address the climate imperative to reduce emissions from the power sector and work to build a new clean economy.

More information on NEWIS and the economy study can be found at the ISO-NE section on the RENEW website.

Special mention and recognition is due to Abigail Krich, the President of Boreas Renewables, transmission consultant to RENEW who was the primary representative of RENEW in the NEWIS process and in the development of the economic study request (and whose material I have shamelessly borrowed from in crafting this blog post).

Today, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) Northeast Fisheries Science Center (NEFSC) released the Interim Report for Fishing Year 2010 on the Performance of the Northeast Multispecies (Groundfish) Fishery (May 2010-January 2011), which examines gross revenues, fishing effort, average vessel performance, distribution of revenues, and employment for the first nine months of the 2007 through 2010 fishing years. As expected under the new sector management system, which went into effect last May, the report shows an increase in gross revenues in 2010 compared to previous years. However, since the report does not take into account expenses such as vessel operating costs or the costs associated with joining a sector, the effect of sectors on net revenues in the fishery still remains to be seen.

Haddock, one of the species managed as part of the Northeast multispecies groundfish fishery (Photo credit: NOAA)

Still, NOAA’s statement on the release of the report expressed optimism.  “The report provides welcome news about Northeast groundfish revenues,” said Eric Schwaab, NOAA assistant administrator for fisheries. “For example, the higher revenues occurred without exceeding this year’s groundfish catch quotas. And while many fishermen are doing better, we also know that some fishermen and businesses are not doing as well.”

The report noted that many trends observed in 2010 were continuations of trends that had been apparent since 2007 or even earlier, including declining landings, a declining number of active vessels, and increasing concentration of groundfish revenue among the top-earning vessels. Some other trends observed this year are new, and these trends are of a more positive nature, including increases in gross revenues, increases in prices of both groundfish and non-groundfish species, and increased economic performance in terms of revenue per unit effort.

As mentioned above, data from the final three months of the fishing year and data on the costs associated with the new system have yet to be incorporated into NEFSC’s analysis, so a final assessment of the first year of sectors is not currently possible. The interim report will be updated in August 2011 to take into account this additional information.

To read more about the Northeast multispecies groundfish fishery and the sector system, please visit Talking Fish, a new blog created by CLF and other like-minded organizations and individuals to foster informed and productive discussion about New England’s fisheries and coastal communities.

Photo credit: National Park Service

We’re excited to share that we’re very close to reaching our Earth Day Challenge goal of raising $41,000 which CLF board members have agreed to match dollar-for-dollar, making your gift work twice as hard! We’d like to extend an enormous thank you to all of you who reached for your credit cards and checkbooks– and for those of you who haven’t, to announce that you’re not too late! Just to be absolutely sure that we meet our goal, we’re extending our Earth Day Challenge deadline until midnight on April 30. You can help push us over the finish line by making a new or increased gift today!

Today, 41 years after Earth Day’s founding, its purpose of shining a spotlight on environmental issues is more poignant than ever. In the past few weeks alone, we have watched with terror as a nuclear disaster unfolded in Japan and, just two days ago, solemnly observed the one year anniversary of the BP oil disaster. Yet, in the current political climate, our national resolve to avert disasters like these and protect our environment is weak. That’s why every day is Earth Day at CLF.

Whether it’s working to ensure that appropriate caution is taken with the proposed Northern Pass transmission project in New Hampshire, or fighting to prevent Vermont’s state lands from being ravaged by ATVs, we shine a spotlight every day on the issues that concern you.

Tackling these challenges – and turning them into victories – is not possible without your help. Thank you in advance for all you do to help CLF protect our New England, today and every day.

In honor of the 41st anniversary of Earth Day, CLF Board members from across New England have banded together to make an extraordinary $41,000 investment in CLF’s – and our region’s – future. Every new or increased gift you make now through Earth Day – April 22– can be matched, dollar-for-dollar, up to $41,000.

Your gift today will go toward solving the region’s toughest environmental problems, and help us ensure a healthy, thriving New England for generations to come. From Maine to Rhode Island, CLF stands up for your favorite places, for the health of your families and your communities, and for the prosperity of our region. Since the last Earth Day, we:

• Cleaned up the air in Somerset, MA by closing the doors on an old, polluting coal plant
• Won tougher standards for phosphorus pollution in Lake Champlain, VT
• Preserved the fragile ecosystem of Great Salt Pond on Block Island, RI
• Saved Mainers millions of dollars on electricity infrastructure
• Helped NH cities and towns save energy and money by increasing energy efficiency

As Earth Day approaches, we are reminded that around the world and right here in New England, our land, our oceans and our air are in peril. On the heels of the 2010 elections, many in the new Congress are pursuing a clear anti-environment agenda, one that cuts directly to the core of the most fundamental protections for our health, safety and well-being. With leadership in Washington sorely lacking, CLF is uniquely poised to take the reins in protecting New England.

Today, we are asking you to help us continue our progress by taking part in our Earth Day Challenge. Your commitment enables CLF to safeguard our oceans, clean up our lakes, rivers and forests, promote clean energy innovations and build healthy, livable communities. We hope you will take part in our Earth Day Challenge by making a donation today to help CLF protect our small but mighty corner of the world.

As part of the national effort to streamline and improve regulations launched by President Obama in an Executive Order the Environmental Protection Agency is soliciting comments on what regulations should be “modified, streamlined, expanded, or repealed” — so tell them what you think! They have a webpage that explains what they are looking for and provides an opportunity to submit comments online.

At a recent “listening session” held in Boston CLF offered these thoughts to EPA.  The deadline for comments is April 4, 2011– let your voice be heard !

In response to a February 21 order by the Rhode Island Supreme Court, the Conservation Law Foundation (CLF) today filed a brief defending its legal standing in the Deepwater Wind case and issued the following statement:

Jerry Elmer, staff attorney at CLF Rhode Island, said, “If CLF and others are denied standing in this case, it will have the effect of shutting down the process for reviewing and appealing the PUC’s decisions on renewable energy contracts, not just in this case, but potentially on all future contracts as well.”

Tricia K. Jedele, director of CLF Rhode Island, said, “The need for a fair and open process to ensure that renewable energy development is done right in Rhode Island is at the heart of CLF’s case. That fair and open process begins with a finding by the Court that CLF has standing to pursue this appeal on behalf of its members and in the interest of Rhode Island’s clean energy future, which is in the public interest.”